Landscape is spatial, economic, political, environmental and social – a product and reflection of our collective imagination. From civic responsibility to cultural specificity, from the topological to the philosophical, the production of landscape is a situated public project.

The Anthropocene era and the effects of large-scale urbanisation and climate change pose massive risks to human life and natural systems. Can prioritising everyday experience above utility increase empathy and our connection with each other and our environments? Can landscape incrementally change the way we think and behave, to generate hybridised resilient cities that are both ecological and sociological?

This year’s Festival of Landscape Architecture: This Public Life will share tools and methods to address these critical design challenges. Combining presentations by, and conversations with, thinkers and practitioners from the arts and sciences – both nationally and internationally – the festival will explore public life through the lenses: Life + Death, Love + Longing and Participation + Spectacle.

Van Alen Institute Executive Director David van der Leer will present a keynote address on Friday, October 16, 9:20 a.m. — 10:10 a.m.

Learn more on the official This Public Life website.